Distracted driving is a major problem, leading to countless injuries and deaths, as well as significant property damage. Today, the most common form of distracted driving results from talking or texting with a cellphone. The problem is significant enough that legislation has been enacted nationwide to make it unlawful to engage in cell phone use while driving.
For businesses that operate fleets of vehicles, having their employees operate vehicles while distracted by electronic devices is a major concern. Such businesses are legally responsible for the conduct of their employees carried out in the course of business, and will incur significant financial responsibility when an accident occurs and someone is injured by their employee. Aside from the resulting increase in insurance rates and responsibility for losses beyond insurance coverage, an accident caused by one of their employees can result in devastatingly bad publicity for the company.
As a result, companies have struggled to find an effective solution to prevent electronic device usage by their employees while driving. They enact rules and policies, sometimes with penalties and consequences. But none of these measures seem effective at stopping their employees from making a momentary exception to ‘just check their phone’.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.